In Void Bastards, Some Characters Can Actually be Colorblind

In Void Bastards, Some Characters Can Actually be Colorblind

Void Bastards developer Blue Manchu talked to DualShockers about the game, revealing that colorblindness can actually be a character trait.

In an interview with DualShockers,Void Bastards creators Blue Manchu talked about the workings, thoughts, and actions behind the creation and development of the game. In one of our questions, we asked the team about accessibility due to the game being a color-driven project.

“Good question, we’ve definitely thought about this although it’s probably not something we’ve solved perfectly yet,” says Jonathan Chey, original co-founder of Irrational Games and lead programmer/designer on Void Bastards. While colorblind options aren’t been implemented at this time, Jonathan did reveal that colorblindness is one of the random traits that playable characters can receive during their creation:

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“Interesting anecdote: new characters in the game get a random selection of traits that make each one play differently. One of those traits is “colorblind”, which turns the world into shades of grey. It’s been quite eye-opening to see the world that way.”

We already know that each character in the game possesses their own traits and you can play as new characters if you die, but Chey has now confirmed to us that one of these traits can be colorblindness. It’ll be fascinating to see how a characteristic like that can affect gameplay, especially with a game that focuses so much on distinguishing between colors.

Personally, I can’t wait to see how it changes the look and difficulty of the game. Chey notes that “when playing with this trait, [the team] realized how hard it is to tell which doors are locked and which are not since [they] use green door panels to show openable doors and red to show locked ones.”

Void Bastards follows the titular rag-tag group of prisoners throughout their voyage in space. As the game progresses, players must learn to plan their routes, use strategies to successfully complete missions, and make important choices to protect the lives of your fellow prisoners. When one dies, another steps forward to carry on the fight.

Circling back to the main question, hopefully we’ll see Blue Manchu come up with a way to make the game more accessible to those who are colorblind or have other disabilities by the time Void Bastards launches for PC and Xbox One in early 2019. Our full interview with the team will be coming to DualShockers in the coming days, so make sure to stay tuned.